


no te de miedo vivir algo diferente

by witchpersephone (newaddress1997)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Bars and Pubs, Bartender Dan Howell, London, M/M, Meet-Cute, VFX Artist Phil Lester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:01:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24366973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newaddress1997/pseuds/witchpersephone
Summary: VFX artist Phil likes company parties, but an expensive tequila bar is so far from his usual scene that he has no idea what's going on. Luckily, bartender Dan is happy to educate.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 12
Kudos: 27





	no te de miedo vivir algo diferente

**Author's Note:**

> title from [“X” by the Jonas Brothers and Karol G](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hGdmEwBwbg), which i was vaguely inspired by. it translates to “don’t be afraid to live [experience] something different”
> 
> [here's](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7aGUGwlr0szPGobzLqzoIf?si=iU2HQtrsQ1S-ek7xZaokCg) a playlist i listened to a lot while writing this.  
> if you listen to latin music you'll notice that a lot of these songs are SUPER OLD, because i picked ones that have emotional significance to me. (ask me about the time luis fonsi watched a video i shot in high school and then responded with another video???)

Phil likes company parties. Really. They happen once every three or four months, which is perfect for him because he only wants to stay out all night a handful of times per year. Company parties allow him to do exactly that without ever paying for it. He more or less likes his coworkers, and as a VFX artist he’s far enough removed from the cast that he doesn’t have to deal with obnoxious talent. It’s fun.

That said, these events are planned with obnoxious talent in mind, which means that the company rents out some rooftop bar in the most expensive part of the city. This time it’s May and unseasonably warm in London, which is how Phil finds himself at a Mexican restaurant that’d be £50 a plate if anyone was eating.

Instead, they are partaking in the tequila bar part of the experience.

He was handed a margarita the second he got up to the rooftop and he’d normally take it slow, but he’s being forced to socialize with people outside his bubble since two members of his team are coming late. Michael from color is joking about hating his wife or something while also pressuring the new hires to drink more, and Phil’s not sure if alcohol will make Michael easier to tolerate or make him more comfortable calling out bullshit, but either way it’ll be better than this.

He looks over his shoulder, and sees that there’s miraculously no line at the bar. This is his chance.

“Do you need anything from the bar?” he asks the woman next to him. They talked for a bit before Michael started his rant, and he’s 90% sure her name is Claire, but he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he got it wrong. She’s new to the concept art team so they’ll probably work together in the future.

“Um, yeah, that’d be great.” She pauses. “Could I have a golden margarita? Is that a thing?”

“I think so?” Phil says. He feels like he’s heard that before. “I can ask.”

“Thanks! I’m honestly so out of my depth with tequila — good luck.”

Phil can relate. He’s not bought a bottle of tequila since uni, and while he’s had a couple of margaritas at restaurants since then, he’s not used to specifying anything more than regular or frozen.

He smiles at probably-Claire (or maybe it’s more of a grimace) before removing himself from the growing circle of people and heading to the bar.

The other issue with places like this is that the bartenders are always intimidating. Working in film should have him used to being surrounded by supernaturally beautiful people that are all better dressed than him, but there is a lot more pressure to be cool in a bar, and frankly, that’s not something he gets better at when the stakes are increased.

The bars on the rooftop are floating pods that customers can approach from all four sides. When he walks up to the pod closest to him, both bartenders are doing other things, and he’s trying to figure out the best way to get someone’s attention without feeling like a dick when the woman arranging glassware under the bar notices him.

“Hey Dan,” she calls, and her coworker looks up from tapping on the register screen. He notices Phil a second later and walks over.

“Hi, what can I get started for you?” he asks.

It takes Phil a second to even process the question. He is used to hot bartenders. Hell, he expects hot bartenders at places like this. But he also expects them to be hipsters that are working to support their masters in anthropology while like … showing off a tattoo in a language they don’t speak. It’s not his type, so his brain kind of goes “damn, hot,” and then moves on.

_Dan_ looks like the guy who eviscerates the obnoxious hipster in your anthropology class by telling a salient personal story and then citing data to universalize the experience, looking bored the whole time and going back to his phone as soon as he’s finished.

That is Phil’s type.

(Also he’s hot. Curly brown hair tousled in that “I woke up like this, and yet, I look better than you” way, pretty face, black shirt unbuttoned just enough for Phil’s brain to start doing bad things.)

“A golden margarita?” Phil asks, at least a beat late, if not several. “And a … dealer’s choice.”

Before he finishes speaking Dan is scooping ice into a shaker tin and pouring things from unlabeled bottles. Phil can’t really remember the ingredients in a margarita other than tequila and lime juice, so he doesn’t even know if this is standard or not.

“Roca Patrón or 1942 for the golden?”

Phil panics for a moment before remembering that he knows what Patrón is. He feels like the tequila he’s not familiar with is probably the better one considering his experience level, but something about the way he says “1942” must seem like a question because Dan smirks a bit and says, “Yeah, that’s the right answer.”

Phil is weirdly glad that he chose correctly. He just wants the best for Claire. That’s the only reason why.

Dan is shaking the drink now, and Phil is thinking cursed thoughts. He’s tempted to text PJ for an ETA, but before he can get his phone out, there’s a margarita in front of him.

“Golden with 1942 on the rocks. And you said dealer’s choice for the other one?”

Dan sounds suspicious, and Phil doesn’t know why. To be honest, “surprise me” is always a risky move for him because he has food intolerances, but Dan shouldn’t be able to tell that by looking at his face. Also, he’s pretty sure dairy with tequila isn’t a thing.

“Yeah. I drink tequila so infrequently that I feel like you have a better chance of knowing what I want than I do,” he says, and it’s true. He only goes out once a quarter, though, so it feels lame to drink classic margaritas all night and then go home.

“Sure, what _do_ you drink?” Dan asks.

“Mostly beer,” he admits. “Though I’ll occasionally go for white wine or vodka and Ribena.”

Dan smiles like he knows something Phil doesn’t. “Because you prefer those flavors, because you don’t care enough to make other stuff, or because you’re just trying to get drunk with as little effort as possible?” he asks.

“Some combination of the first and the second,” Phil says because it’s not like he doesn’t enjoy the things he’s drinking. But also he doesn’t drink that often, and he’s usually with someone else who cares more, and there are few things he straight-up hates.

Dan grabs a glass from somewhere under the bar and seems to be organizing ingredients, starting with a lemon wedge and what appears to be several different kinds of salt.

“Hmm, okay. Where do you want to be on the scale from sweet to, like, ‘I am a Man and if it does not burn in my chest for at least three seconds I will not consume it?’”

“Not that,” Phil says reflexively. “I’m lucky to live a life free of the strange insecurities of straight men, but it doesn’t need to be super sweet. Just not super strong.”

He only realizes after the fact that the statement could be perceived as forward, but Dan just laughs.

“Glad to hear it,” he says. “God knows life is so much easier once you get over that one.”

Dan has begun building Phil’s drink, and the rhythm of it almost seems like an elaborate dance. Like the golden margarita, there are several unlabeled squeeze bottles involved, including a fruit-something the color of Ribena.

“Yeah,” Phil says. It was hard for him to get there, but it was obviously worth it. “One of the main narrative arcs of my time in secondary school was learning to live with the fact that I wouldn’t be able to live the Hollywood, straight-boy ideal and that was okay.”

Dan looks up from straining Phil’s drink at that, grabbing a napkin. “At least you got there in secondary school. I didn’t manage to get my degree at uni, but I did stop killing myself all-but-literally for the quasi-approval of homophobic straight people. Also, dealer’s choice,” he says, sliding a finished drink across the bar.

Dan’s nails are painted black, somehow catching the light even with a matte finish. Phil waits for him to continue, expecting some sort of description, but Dan simply raises an eyebrow, so Phil just goes for it.

The first thing he notices is Ribena because it’s the last thing he’d expect at a place like this, but then there are all the flavors layered over it. There’s the sweetness of the Ribena and maybe something else, and the acidity of lemon juice, and something smoky that Phil can’t identify, on top of the salt and the spice from the rim of the glass. He’s been to nice bars and had nice drinks before, but he’s genuinely shocked that this many different things can play nicely together.

“This is really good. What the hell is it?”

Dan smiles. “A fairly-modified margarita. Sub mezcal for tequila and Ribena for simple syrup, chili salt to rim the glass.”

“And if I maybe, possibly don’t really remember what the standard ingredients in a margarita are?” Phil asks. If he was thinking he would’ve read the Wikipedia article on the Tube just so he could be less awkward.

“Then I would tell you that we’re using mezcal which is a spirit made from agave like tequila, except the agave is smoked which gives it a different flavor profile,” Dan explains. “I used Cointreau as the citrus liqueur which isn’t uncommon. It’s mostly sweet, also pretty orange-forward with a bit of floral. Ribena is replacing a straight sweetener — normally simple syrup — while also giving you the fruitiness, obviously. And I used a combo of lemon and lime juice because I find that lemon plays a little nicer with Ribena.”

It’s a lot of information about something Phil knows so little about, but it explains the flavors he was able to identify, and also, competence is hot. Dan could teach him about alcohol any day especially if it meant he —

“It’s really good,” Phil says. “I don’t think I’ve had mezcal before but I like it.”

“It’s only starting to be available in the UK, which means it’s still really expensive, but yeah, it’s good. And maybe a bit easier to sip than tequila depending on your taste.”

“Is this when you tell me that the only reason I can’t drink tequila straight is because I’ve never had a good one?”

“Yep,” Dan says, popping the “p” as he reaches under the bar. He comes up with baby rocks glasses and then turns to grab three bottles. Phil’s first instinct is that they look like bottles he can’t afford, but then he remembers that he’s not paying for any of this.

Dan pours a glass of each. They are three different colors, the last one a dark gold that he remembers from Claire’s drink.

(That he still has. And should probably go give to her at some point.)

“So in order of age, this is Casa Dragones Joven, Clase Azul Reposado and Don Julio 1942 Añejo. The color difference comes from how long the tequila has been aged in oak barrels.”

Dan pushes them all across the bar to him, and honestly, he doesn’t know what he was expecting, but he does know that it is not in anyone’s best interest for him to drink three tequilas, neat, back-to-back.

“Mate, you do not want me four drinks in at—,” he looks down at his phone, “9:30.”

“Mate, none of those are full pours,” Dan hits back. “Cheater glasses — they’re designed to look fuller than they are.”

Phil’s about to respond when Claire comes up to the bar. She looks at Phil, then at Dan, then back at Phil and smiles at him way too genuinely.

“Phil! I feel like I don’t know you well enough to say that I’m not surprised that you have _made friends_ with the bartender, and yet…”

She says “made friends” with a weight that makes it abundantly clear that she’s using it as a euphemism, and Phil is sure he’s gone very pink.

“I feel like anyone would tell you that’s accurate,” he says, reaching for the golden margarita that had gotten pushed aside for Dan’s impromptu flight of sipping tequilas. “Sorry to take this hostage.”

She takes the margarita from him and sips at it. It’s on ice, which has Phil worried about if it’s gotten watery, but she seems happy with it.

“That’s really good,” she says, looking at Dan. “Is a golden margarita actually a thing?”

“Yeah, but it’s a shitty one,” he replies. “So I kind of did something else, but the tequila I used was gold-colored.”

“Good call, I’m into this.” She turns back to Phil and says, “Thanks, have fun,” and then fucking _winks._ Phil is sure his face is on fire. Claire walks away before he can even respond, and when he turns back to Dan he picks up the first of the tequilas, just to have something to sort of cover his face.

“This is a cast party, right?” Dan asks. Another order must have come in from somewhere because he’s working on drink, this time with jalapeños.

“Production company,” Phil says. “I work in VFX but we have people doing all the post-production things.” He finally takes a sip from the glass in his hand, and his first thought is that it tastes expensive. Once he gets past that there are other flavors, something vaguely floral and sweet, and yeah, it’s not bad.

“Out of curiosity, how much would this cost under normal circumstances?” he asks. He has the feeling he doesn’t want to know, but … he does.

“The Casa Dragones or all three of them?”

“All three.”

Dan squints a little, almost as if he’s trying to do the math in his head. “Right around £100, I think. I can’t remember how much the Clase Azul is but the Casa Dragones is 50 and the 1942 is 35.”

“Jesus Christ,” Phil says. As predicted, he did not want to know. When he takes a second sip, he takes it emphasizing in his head that this is a £50 glass of tequila that is less than one standard drink. It somehow tastes more nuanced that way, which is definitely his brain trying to rationalize it.

“So VFX,” Dan says, and Phil is glad for the distraction as he switches out his £50 tequila for the reposado. “Have you worked on anything I would recognize?”

It’s the question Phil’s asked most often, and it’s always weird because he’s legally not allowed to talk about projects until they’ve been out for a bit. He’s gone to the cinema with friends to see films he worked on and not been able to tell them because his NDA hadn’t expired yet. Some of his coworkers definitely bend the rules and then brag about it, but that’s not Phil’s style.

“I did some stuff for Black Mirror last year,” he says. “That was a fun one because of all the technology.”

Dan’s face lights up. “Oh my god, I love Black Mirror. Are you allowed to talk about which episodes?”

From, there they talk about pop culture for two hours. It’s nearing midnight and Phil’s five drinks in, which is generally where he taps out. He’s vaguely aware that Dan is sober and he’s probably making a fool of himself, but the thought feels far away and unimportant.

“I can’t believe I thought you were cool enough to be intimidated by you when you’re really going to argue with me about Mario Kart,” Phil says incredulously. It’s a bad-faith argument because he started the discussion, but he wasn’t expecting Dan to get so stuck on it.

Dan squints at him before flipping the shaker tin _full of liquid_ into the air and catching on the back of his arm. This is followed by a series of increasingly ridiculous bar tricks, executed with a level of dexterity that makes Phil’s drunk brain think demon thoughts. He's seen flair bartending, usually in viral Facebook videos, and yeah, it's cool, but not usually something that would get him this worked up. It's just that when Dan's flipping a full bottle of liquor between two fingers like it's nothing it's hard not to think about other things those fingers could do.

It doesn’t help that Dan doesn’t break eye contact once until he’s finished the drink and is sliding it to a customer on the other side of the bar. When he gets back he raises an eyebrow at Phil and asks, “You were saying?”

“When are you off work?” It’s uncharacteristically bold for Phil, but he doesn’t feel like he has a lot to lose. The night’s given him a greater appreciation for tequila, but there are a ton of other bars in this city if he makes a fool of himself and therefore has to avoid this place forever.

“Two-thirty if this ends on time,” Dan says. “Interested, but don’t think you’ll be awake, mate.”

Phil's not sure if Dan's referring to how drunk he is or that he generally doesn't seem to be a party all night type. Both are true, but also Phil has done more difficult things for people he was less attracted to.

“I could be,” he says. He’s trying to go for flirty, but it probably comes out more like a protest.

“I need more than that to travel most likely out of my way in the middle of the night, though,” Dan says. “As someone who’s been working nights for years, there is nothing more tragic than standing outside someone’s building at 3 am calling them over and over while deciding how long you’re going to stand there in the cold and/or rain before you accept defeat and embark on a long commute home.”

“Fair,” Phil says. “So what if I give you my number, and then you call me when you’re leaving, and then you can confirm whether or not I am awake.” He feels like it’s a fair proposal, and he doesn’t actually live that far from here.

“Give me your phone,” Dan says. Phil does, and Dan is tapping at it for what seems like an obscene amount of time before he pulls his own phone out of his pocket, nods, and gives Phil his back. “I’ll call you when I’m leaving here.”

“Sounds good,” Phil says, smiling. He’s not sure what he wants past getting to keep seeing Dan tonight, but he’s also not sure if there’s anything he’s not down for. “But you’re still wrong about Rainbow Road.”

-

Phil leaves the bar at 12:30, mainly to avoid having to talk to random coworkers while waiting for the Night Tube that’ll only be running every 10 minutes.

Just after 1:00 he lets himself into his apartment, changes clothes, and starts drinking water.

At 2:40 he’s blearily watching YouTube videos and definitely not absorbing anything that’s going on when his phone rings, playing the Rainbow Road theme music. It’s Dan, of course it is, and he confirms that he is awake, and also awed by his ridiculous commitment to this Mario Kart disagreement.

At 3:15 am on Saturday, Phil buzzes Dan into his apartment. The black button-down has been replaced by an oversized striped jumper, and it looks so _good_.

Dan smiles at him, shifting the backpack on his shoulder.

“Hey.”

——————--

**dealer’s choice**

_ingredients:_

2 oz / 55ml ilegal mezcal joven  
1oz / 30ml cointreau  
2.25oz / 70ml ribena  
1 oz / 30ml lemon juice  
1 oz / 30ml lime juice  
two lemon wheels  
a tablespoon of coarsely ground sea salt or kosher salt  
a teaspoon of chili powder  
ice

(you can definitely sub in different brands of mezcal and/or triple sec if you need to! ironically, i would just hesitate to use anything but original ribena, as this recipe is using it not just for the flavor, but also as a sweetener, and diet will very possibly throw those ratios off.)

_equipment:_

cocktail shaker and strainer  
cutting board  
knife  
rocks glass

_instructions:_

1\. pour your salt and chili power onto a plate or cutting board and mix them together. your chili salt should be in a mound rather than spread all across the plate. (if it looks suspicious you've got it right.)

2\. moisten half of the glass’ rim with the lemon wedge. run that same half of the glass through your salt pile to rim the glass.

3\. pour ribena and citrus juice into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. shake for 10 seconds.

5\. add mezcal and cointreau to the shaker. shake for another 10 seconds.

6\. strain into a rocks glass, over ice, if you're about that life. cut a small notch into your second lemon wheel and place it on the rim of the glass for garnish

7\. enjoy :)

**Author's Note:**

> god, writing this made me miss my favorite tequila bar. lolita fort point if you happen to be of age and in the greater boston area. 
> 
> i hope you enjoyed! one-shot for now but i've got ideas for other drinks, so hopefully, there will be more snapshots from this verse soon. 
> 
> follow me on twitter [@witchpersephone](https://twitter.com/witchpersephone) for dan and phil
> 
> follow me on instagram [@celebratorysips](https://instagram.com/celebratorysips) for bartending


End file.
